No interpretation or evaluation of a literary text can be justified as
correct or true. All interpretation and evaluations are fantasies produced by the inevitable solipsism of the ego-imprisoned reader. The immortality of a literary work is based on the gullibility of the canon makers toadying to misreadings and misevaluations so in their solitude the arbiters can have the illusion of self-esteem.
–Norris Benjamin
Established dogma and doctrine must be questioned and challenged constantly in an effort to improve humankind. What is good literature, for example? Random House Webster's College Dictionary defines it as "writing in prose or verse regarded as having permanent worth through its intrinsic excellence." But according to that definition, the phrase ‘good literature' constitutes a pleonasm, while ‘junk literature,' an oxymoron.
The Random House–Webster definition leaves a lot to be desired, at least for the thinkers amongst us, because it fails to mention who determines what writing possesses "intrinsic excellence" and "permanent worth," elements not at all determined as objectively as orthodox literati perhaps would have us believe.
Moreover, writing of the past decade and perhaps even century obviously can not be deemed to have become "permanent." Thus the term ‘modern literature,' according to the Random House–Webster definition, must also constitute an oxymoron. Indeed, it is apparent that today's literature is, for all practical purposes, really defined without the element of permanency, or at best with that of probable permanency. Just the same, the factors that determine permanency, barring fascist book burnings, are essentially the same factors that determine "intrinsic excellence." (The term ‘intrinsic' is deceptive in its scientific connotation and really ought to be omitted from the definition, for empiricism and literature are not compatible.)
What therefore constitutes "excellence" in literature? Is Faulkner "excellence"? If so, how might one explain the commentary of Charles Bukowski, an "excellent" writer, at least according to my standards, but then who am I? "Where was I?" wrote Bukowski. "Yeah? Down at the beach reading Faulkner, trying him again, trying to convince myself that he wasn't a phoney to me. He'd won all the prizes. His photo even looked like a man. What was wrong? I felt like he was slipping me the smooth bologna. I am still puzzled. He can't write. He slicks it. He's celluloid. Clever. Cute. What's wrong with me?"
Well, for orthodox literati, something was wrong with Bukowski. Nevertheless, barring an objective definition, the term ‘excellence' must permit personal opinion. Thus, on the personal level, Bukowski was correct in questioning Faulkner as "intrinsic excellence." Personal opinions, however, even those of well-known writers, including Bukowski, will always be eclipsed in the long-run by the opinion of the general group of reigning literati comprised of publishers, editors, literary agents, critics, cultural councils and college English professors. Indeed, the latter constitute the only real determiners of literary excellence and eventual permanency, for only they exert substantive influence on what books (excellent or not) are to be published in the first place.
Granted, the possibility of self-publishing or the small press exists, but self-published or small-press books rarely, if ever, are widely distributed and inevitably fall into oblivion. Curiously, the same people who determine what "excellence" is and isn't are responsible for the plethora of ‘junk literature' found on the shelves in bookstores such as Barnes & Noble and Borders. In fact, ‘junk literature' is, more often than not, accorded situational priority at most bookstores. Next to the register at one Barnes & Noble, for example, I noted List Your Self: Listmaking as the Way to Self- Discovery and Chicken Soup for Nerds, not Faulkner's Sound and the Fury nor O'Neill's Long Day's Journey into Night, which were both buried in the back of the store, clearly not bestsellers today.
What kind of people tend to be literary agents, publishers and editors? By virtue of the profession, they tend to be well-educated, well-indoctrinated as to what literature is "intrinsically" good and what is not, perhaps politically-corrected and no doubt well-ingrained with bourgeois values. Certainly, these traits must also fit the personalities of the college English professors and literary critics, who also determine "excellence" in the same manner as, for example, Siskel and Ebert... with two-thumbs-up-cinematic-power-of- determination.
Money, no doubt an embarrassing element, must be considered, more than any other factor, as the key definer of "excellence" in contemporary American literature. Clearly, marketability determines which manuscripts are accepted by literary agents, publishers and editors, who in reality are but thinly disguised businesspeople dressed in literary regalia. Indeed, "excellence" is essentially determined by them, and they are not always the most qualified connoisseurs of literary "excellence."
A recent article, "For Sale: Amazon.com's Recommendations to Readers" appearing in The New York Times, clearly underscores money's close ties to literary "excellence." In that article, Doreen Carvajal reports that "The E-commerce pioneer Amazon.com strives for a clean look for its online bookstore. That is why executives consider it unnecessary to clutter its World Wide Web pages and pithy book recommendations with notices that publishers are starting to pay to have titles featured as ‘New and Notable' or ‘Destined for Greatness.'" That phenomenon, known as ‘cooperative advertizing,' will also be offered to publishers by Barnesandnobel.com.
Theoretically, "excellence," when not marketable (perhaps true "excellence" today is rarely if ever marketable), will be published and disseminated anyhow, thanks to "literary" prizes, cultural councils and university fellowships and presses, funded by the fortunes of former or current businesspeople and the taxes of ordinary citizens. However, one must question who presides over these diverse ‘non-profit' entities as judges—literary gods, if you will—determining (arbitrarily and capriciously?) "excellence."
What empowers, for example, the Swedish judges of the Nobel Prize to be more qualified than would-be judges from Mali or Pakistan in determining "excellence"? Money, of course. The Swedish judges have lots of it to award, whereas would-be judges from Mali or Pakistan do not. Why aren't the Swedish judges ever examined by investigative reporters such as those on "60 Minutes" or "Prime Time Live," instead of simply taken for granted? Is the chairman of Volvo on the selection committee? If so, is he qualified to judge literary, not automotive, "excellence"? Are the stodgy, cloistered academics of the University of Stockholm the only judges on the committee?
Who are the judges for the Pulitzer, Goncourt and Guggenheim, and for the myriad small-press literary reviews? What are their criteria? Have they even defined criteria? Or is "literary excellence" simply like good teaching? "You'll know it when you see it," one of my evaluators once told me when I posed the question.
The Massachusetts Cultural Council is another determiner of "literary excellence." But who sits on its board of directors? William Bulger, for example, ruthless politician, former state-senate leader, current state-university president and brother of one of the FBI's most wanted men, Whitey Bulger. Would Mr. Bulger—William that is, not Whitey— approve a grant for a poet or playwright denouncing cronyism and corruption in the state government and/or University of Massachusetts?
The poet Pablo Neruda also underscores in his autobiography, Confieso que he vivido, politics as a determining factor as to what literature is to be deemed "intrinsically excellent." He states, regarding the Nobel Prize, that in Latin America, for example, countries plan careful campaigns and design strategies for their chosen candidates. Although this can indeed be crucial, he notes how it can also backfire as in the case of Rómulo Gallegos. "This has been the downfall of several who deserved the Prize. (Ésta ha perdido a algunos que merecieron recibirlo."
When Gallegos became a candidate, the principle focus of Venezuela's embassy in Sweden actually became the obtainment of the Prize. The country's politicians wined and dined key Swedes and even had works by Swedish academics published in Spanish by Stockholm publishing houses, but their efforts became too obvious. Gallegos was not awarded the Prize. Neruda also mentions how a Uruguayan had gone to Stockholm, in an effort to eliminate him as a viable candidate, to spread rumors that he had helped assassinate Trotsky.
As for the Guggenheim, only those writers able to obtain three letters of recommendation need apply, and to obtain such letters one must be careful not to offend, that is criticize, in any way or manner, the letter writers. Indeed, one can not aspire to the Guggenheim if one is friendless, no matter how excellent one's art.
It is a shame, and we must decry this periodically, that some "literature" by virtue of extraneous factors and absence of tangible defining criteria is inevitably kept from publication and/or distribution. We shall never know just how much has been lost from the very beginnings of human creation because of the fallible framework of judgement.
No doubt the Chinese Emperor Shih Huang Ti, Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés, Holy Roman Inquisitors and Nazi book-burners did succeed in erasing authors from human memory when they possessed the power of determination. What works, not so great, must surely have been propagated and disseminated in the place of banned literature over the centuries. Perhaps today's literary agents, publishers and editors, much like today's lawyers and doctors, have, in greater numbers than ever, been forsaking literary responsibility in the name of the all-mighty dollar.
Finally, a Boston literary agent, who actually spent time responding to a query letter I'd sent regarding my manuscript, Loser: Whistleblower on the Unemployment Line, unwittingly provided the idea for this essay. He could have sent a form letter or kept my SASE stamp, as scores of others have done. "I wish I thought otherwise," he wrote, "but alas I do think that this is a hopeless cause, worthiness not being a factor in my view at all, for I do think it is that. But there is the law of conservation of energy. My fights are hard enough."
Indeed, my energy too comes and goes, but usually with the tide of futility and undertow of indignation. What that literary agent had implied was contemporary literature's response to home buying: location, location, location, that is, marketability, marketability, marketability...